The Parable of the Shrewd Manager

The Solution

Having laid out the problem, Jesus quickly delivers the solution in that difficult ninth verse: “I tell you” says Jesus - a phrase which implies this is of utmost importance, “use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.” (Luke 16:9)

As we saw in the introduction, this sentence appears at first glance to be rather odd, and many of the proposed interpretations have, if anything, been even more bizarre. However, Jesus phrases it this way as a deliberate echo of the words the manager uses when solving his own problem in verse 4: “I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.”

Notice ‘so that when’, ‘will welcome’ and ‘into’ a dwelling occur in both verses. These are exactly the same words in the Greek - it is a deliberate and obvious echo, and Jesus phrases like this to indicate that His solution to our problem is drawn directly from the manager’s solution to his. So while the resulting sentence sounds somewhat peculiar, this echo does help us grasp Jesus’ solution. 

‘Worldly wealth’ here is literally ‘unrighteous wealth’, which makes this sounds a bit like ‘ill-gotten gains’, as though Jesus is suggesting we get our wealth through dodgy dealings and work of dubious legality. Either that or it may insinuate the wealth itself is unrighteous - somehow tainted, corrupt and evil. Neither of these is necessarily the aim of the term ‘unrighteous’. Rather the implication is that we are not talking about eternal wealth, but the temporary wealth that belongs to this world. Such wealth is unrighteous in the sense that it is not trustworthy, just as the ‘unrighteous’ manager was not trustworthy. Worldly wealth promises much, but eventually, as Jesus says “it is gone”, either because we use it up, it is taken from us through decay or theft, or because when we die we are cut off from them. This is temporary, worldly wealth, that is not to be trusted.

The ‘wealth’ part is the word ‘mammon’ - a word which only occurs four times in the Bible (three times here and once in a similar passage in Matthew). Jesus does not use any of the usual words for money, instead choosing this much broader term which includes all worldly riches. As such, ‘mammon’ could include money, possessions, our bodies and even non-physical properties, such as time, knowledge, skills and abilities.

In light of this, ‘unrighteous wealth’ would be better translated as ‘worldly resources’, and this is what I will refer to is as for the rest of this study. 

Another curious phrase is “gain friends for yourselves”. It seems an odd solution: if you are not being wise and providing for your eternal future, you need to make friends with lots of people. What is this, some kind of heavenly Facebook challenge? The more ‘friends’ you have the better your eternal future?

Obviously that is not what Jesus is saying. Rather, He is drawing again on what happened in the parable. The shrewd manager provided for his future by using the resources at his disposal to serve others. In the same way, Jesus calls us to provide for our eternal future by using our worldly resources to serve others.

Throughout the Travel Narrative of Luke’s Gospel there is a stream of teaching from Jesus about the cost of being one of His disciples. It begins in chapter 9 as Jesus tells His potential followers that they must deny themselves in order to follow Him, and it culminates in chapter 19 with the real life example of this in the story of Zacchaeus. The message that is hammered out through this stream of teaching is that, if we are to really be Jesus’ disciples, we must provide for our neighbours who are in need (‘neighbours’ being everyone we interact with), and to this end we need to be ready to give up everything we have, even our own lives. The parable of the Shrewd Manager is a key part of this stream of teaching, and when Jesus talks about gaining friends for ourselves, He is referring to our call to provide for those in need using our worldly resources. And the result of this selfless use of worldly resources is that, just as the shrewd manager was received into people’s homes, we too “will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.” 

The Greek here actually says, “They may welcome you into the eternal dwellings” and much has been made of this ‘they’. Some suggest it refers to God Himself - ‘they’ being the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Some suggest it is the angels. Some suggest it is referring to the actual friends you have gained with your worldly possessions. However, none of these suggestions really make sense in the context. Neither God nor angels have even been mentioned up to this point, an suddenly referring to a character you have not introduced using a pronoun instead naming them is the sort of mistake Luke simply does not make. And while we would like to think that, through our actions and the way we live for Christ, the ‘friends’ we gain will also come to know Him and be saved, this is no more guaranteed than that they will get to heaven before us in order to welcome us there.

Jesus phrases it this way because He is echoing the manager’s phrase from verse four, where he literally says, “so that they may welcome my into their houses”. While the manager’s ‘they’ is clearly a reference to his master’s debtors, the ‘they’ in verse 9 is not related to anyone in particular. In fact, this form of middle verb with an unspecified subject may simply be translated as a passive verb, meaning this becomes “You may be welcomed” instead of “They may welcome you”. Another example of this is found in Luke 12, where Jesus literally says, “This night they (unspecified subject) require (middle voice) your life”, which is then more correctly translated, “your life will be demanded from you.” (Luke 12:20)

All that to say, the result of using our worldly resources to provide for those in need is that we will be welcome in ‘eternal dwellings’, which is what we generally call ‘heaven’.

This ‘welcome’ is not a reference to salvation - our handling of worldly resources and care of others can never buy our way into heaven. We only get to heaven through faith in Christ - but this is more than simply ‘getting’ into heaven. This is being ‘welcomed’ into heaven.

A ‘welcome’ in the ancient world was not merely a handshake or a hug as we might use to welcome one another today. A ‘welcome’ was much grander and broader. It included hospitality for the duration of your stay, which meant you were provided with the very best the house had to offer in food, clothing, accommodation and everything else - as much largesse as was at the house’s disposal. This is the welcome we will receive in heaven, if we are shrewd enough to do as Jesus says.

There is much more we could say to deal with the various alternative interpretations of this verse, but it is clear from the context of the parable and the broader context of Jesus’ teaching in Luke that this is the solution Jesus is trying to convey: To provide for our eternal future, we must use our worldly resources to provide for those in need.